If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I was speaking to a local beekeeper who uses a grease pattie on his hives all year long. He has little problem with mites and rarely loses a colony.
I was wondering if you had ever experimented with useing fgmo in a pattie instead of soaked in cords?

There would certainly be more of it so you wouldn't have to replace it as often. That would be nice for the lower broods, not having to bust open the boxes so often, disturbing the work going on there, or the possibility of injuring the queen.
Bill

I have not done the emoulsion. But wouldn't it be simpler to have some holes in the brood box and tie the cords to a piece of stiff wire and insert them and remove them without lifting all those supers?

As long as you inserted and removed them gently, I don't think you would be likely to injure the bees, (at least less than the ones getting squished between the boxes) and you would disturb the nest less and it would be much less labor involved.

What if you just inserted them (tied to the end of the wire again) on the bottom board?

Hello folks.
Yes indeed. My initial trials were done with FGMO patties. 40/ 60 ratio. The patties were made from emulsion prepared by Penreco Oil Company. The emulsion was too expensive to produce by the laboratory and I soon ran out of sponsor. I met a Spanish beekeeper who gave me the idea on how to make the emulsion, home-made style. All this has been recorded and posted in the original postings on beesource.com and might still be in the archives.
There is no reason for not using FGMO emulsion patties. I tried, and then compared to FGMO emulsion soaked cords. I decided for the cordss because the bees showed a preference for the cords. They went for the cords readily and less for the patties. It may be explained in the bees' tendency to remove foreign objects within the hive. My best advice is: if it works for you, go ahead and use it by all means. Just make sure that you use an emuulsion type patty, otherwise you are going to have mineral oil dripping inside your brood chamber and surely will kill bees and risk harming your queens. Here again, this is another reason for using FGMO emulsion instead of lard patties. You can use FGMO emulsion all year long while it is not possible with lard patties. If you use lard patties during the summer, it melts and you have fat running all over your frames and combs. Please believe me. I have done my homework.
Best regards.
Dr. Rodriguez

&gt;You can use FGMO emulsion all year long while it is not possible with lard patties. If you use lard patties during the summer, it melts and you have fat running all over your frames and combs.

The recepie given above does not melt and is used all year long, even in the red hot Kansas sun.
Could you share what your lard (Crisco?) recepie was that did not work? That might keep me from making the same mistake.
In the meantime I will try to find the archive that should have your FGMO emulsion patty recepie.
Thanks,
Bill

Hi: Just to weigh in on the subject I to have used the crisco patties and had no incident of it running. The difference sounds like lard versus crisco. Lard being animal fat and crisco being a vegtable shortening.

Patties
Having applied various patty and soaked paper towels things of multiple ingredinces , the Emulsion recommended By the Dr R. is the most convenient to make and apply . It does not melt easily , at least not within the Temp range where I live .
If you want to apply the patty method in preference to the cords , go ahead and try but stick to the FGMO emulsion formula as recommended .
Only one question remains : What "container" is the best to apply them with. ?
There are the wax paper enclosure or the Papertowel one.
Both are shredded by the bees as it is with cords . I found no remarkable difference between all of them , exept the cords can be reused if one is on the ball with inspections .
Next season I will try the patty application and see what happens, not because the cords did not have the desired effect but I hope to reduce the application period .
Best wishes
JDF

Hello folks.
There are many disadvantages that I have listed previously as to why I switched to FGMO emulsion.
I can see why Krisco may not melt while it is exposed. Krisco may have stabilizers while lard may not.
Stick with FGMO. It has been tested and proved to be efficient, cost effective and it does not deteriorate, it does not oxidize leaving bad odors within the hive that might permeate into the honey.
Besides, the FGMO emulsion has natural beehive products that attract honey bees far more than sugar patties do, at least those were the results of the comparison tests that I perfomed.
Best regards.
Dr. Dodriguez.